Chocolatey Goodness

Part 17: Pillow Fighting

rated NC-17 (R for this section, but the whole chapter.. oh wait, you figured that out?)

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It's dark. Pitch cold black dark. No sound of rain on glass, no graysilver twilight. Just dark. He's alone, as you can only be in the dark, no matter who's around you. No matter what's around you. Don't move -- it'll hear you. Don't breathe, don't... don't just stand there, dipshit. Gotta run. Gotta hide.

When they'd done nuclear attack drills in school-- and even the most stick-up-the-ass teachers couldn't hide a cynical eye-roll at this -- they'd been told to sit in their desks, and put their arms over their heads, just like for an earthquake. Don't look, because you might be staring at the explosion, and go blind. Forget that the school would go up in flames, that if they were close enough to be blinded by a modern nuke, they'd be ashes anyway. Just don't look. That'll save you.

He knew it was ridiculous even then, though now there's a faint echo of laughter in his head, from the professional grunt who told him where to place the charges for maximum effect when he blew the place up himself. Still, it's a foxhole, sort of. A way to pretend. He slips into a desk, quiet as he can, and hides, with his eyes closed and his arms over his ears. I can't see you, I can't see you, I can't see you...

*****

Spike used to be afraid of the dark. Once. Back when he was human and frail and small and all he had to fight off the bad things that lived in it were a worn stuffed lamb to clutch and the bedclothes pulled tight over his head.

He hasn't been afraid of the dark for a long time. Time came when he got too old for hiding under the covers, and if he still feared walking home alone at night... Well, he didn't have to say so, and later, he became one of those bad things, himself.

Still, Spike wouldn't curse a candle right about now, no matter that no mostly-sane vampire cares much for fire. Torch, flare, access to a light-switch; he's not picky. Spike waves his hands around him, feeling for a desk, a chair, a door. Anything. Anyone.

Nothing. No one.

"Xander?"

It comes out in his own voice. Unsure, rusty with being held inside another throat for...however long it's been, but his voice. Spike's voice. Spike's accent, Spike's word. His. Spike's mouth.

And everything changes again.

Spike was free. His hands belonged to him again -- he could move them around, not that he could see them, but he could feel the expected swoosh of air. He could hum, and laugh, and listen to the bitter echo in the darkness that stretched out around him.

Bitter, because he was free, and only in his freedom, did he realize he was alone. Xander hadn't answered. Xander, his bizarre dream of Xander's voice and hands and reflection, wasn't there.

His body felt the chill, with no blood to warm it. The silence was deeper, with no sound of breathing in his ears, no cracking tenor voice in his mouth, only his own. "God, I could use a smoke." He laughed again, at the sound. "Or a light. I'd settle for a light."

It glowed in front of him, orange in the black.

"And the morning and the evening were the first day..." Spike muttered as he walked towards it. Deja-vu, cept it can't be Sunnydale, unless they've set the place on fire. That thought warmed him a little. Couldn't tell how far away it was, except that it got bigger, after a while. Brighter. A pillar of flame, rising up, too bright to stare directly at for long, yet lending no light to its surroundings -- or there was just nothing else there for it to light up.

As he walked, he thought he heard things, familiar voices floating around in the darkness.

"Here. Drink this. And stop it." Sharp, female, his Sire's little cheerleader with the take-no-shit crossbow in his face.

"Stop what?"

"Brooding."

"I'm not..."

"Right, you're not brooding. You're sitting there -- on top of a bag of M&M's, by the way, just thought I'd let you know, so you're not surprised when you stand up and have chocolate all over your ass -- thinking, 'God, he looks so helpless lying there, and it's all my fault, my kid and his buddy got attacked by a monster, and the world's gonna end and Gucci is gonna discontinue the padded loafer, all because I was smooching Wesley behind a potted plant, for lo, I am Angel, and I am responsible for all. But you're not brooding."

"Well, not the Gucci part." A crinkle of something, and faint, faint smell of chocolate. "Um, you... potted plant?"

"Boston fern. Drink your blood. I promise not to tell the Powers That Be that you were playing tongue-twister with Wes, if you promise to inform me before you do anything really stupid, so I can at least call Willow and have her wait outside the door with the Ritual of Restoration handy. And if you promise to stop brooding."

"I'm not brooding. I just...don't like waiting."

"Willow says..." The voices faded away, as Spike walked closer to the fire. He shook them off, like the memory of rain on his hair. They seemed unnatural, had no place here in the dark. A dream of something happening to someone else.

He couldn't be sure how long he walked, except that the light grew bigger and impossibly brighter -- but at last he stood in front of the fire, and looked. Had to look, though what he saw made him wish he'd stayed in the dark.

It was a pyre. A stake in flames. Virgin tied like Joan of Arc at the center, writhing in her bonds, dressed in white, and screaming soundlessly. Except she wasn't Joan. Wasn't a virgin of any color, not since Spike had still been young enough to hide beneath the blankets.

It was Dru, tall and proud in the red-orange glare, for all her body squirmed. The flames lifted her hair, air currents twisting the curls serpentine around her face, covering wide-open eyes. Red lips open too, calling someone's name. Not his. It might have been Father, it might have been Daddy, but it wasn't Spike. It wasn't even William.

He almost reached, anyway. Almost walked into the fire for her. He'd done it before, and he would, he still would, after all of it, if he had to. But...

No mostly-sane vampire cares much for fire. It burns dead flesh faster, can bring the true death of ashes and emptiness, in seconds, leaving nothing. You'd have to be crazy not to fear it, not to scream and run, not to beg for help. You'd have to be crazy, to laugh as the flames caressed your skin.

He'd seen her do just that in Prague, though. Scream and laugh at the same time, sing as the orange tongues of fire flicked across her wrists, climbed her dress and darted for her hair. The figure on the pyre smiled, now, too late, but it was wrong, and he knew.

It slammed back into his head with startling clarity. Where he was. What was happening. Too clear, like he still had cider in his mouth, pisswater though Dru's brand might be. A drunk's clarity, where everything made sense. "S'a good likeness," Spike said loudly, his voice not catching at all, and why would it, since muscles don't get dusty from disuse, in dreams. "But you don't know her as well as I do. Don't have the smile down. Too many teeth."

The fire blazed brighter for a second, sparks whirling up and around like demented fireflies; then it shrank back down, and down, and down.

She stood across from him, flames vanishing, sucked into her skin. His once and no longer princess, tangled waves of hair draped around her shoulders, white frock not even singed. She shone in her own little circle, something sickly and red, that, like the pyre, gave no light to her surroundings, no light to him. He knew who it was, should have recognized that smile no matter what face she hid behind.

"The dreamer's thoughts give me shape within, unless I choose otherwise," Reikoku said gently -- with Drusilla's mouth, Drusilla's voice. "You called for the light; you gave me her face."

He stared at her, frankly studying his own memory of Dru, and thought she was only partly right. His girl had never stood like that, never quite so mock-humble, as if she was just about to bow. "Haven't had that dream in years," he muttered. Not even after Prague, when it had really happened. He hadn't dreamt of Dru on fire since... He couldn't remember.

"Because I took it from you, long ago, as a favour to her. Only you would manage to call it back, pull it out of my memory, looking for something to frighten yourself with. Baka." The Japanese insult sounded funny in Dru's accent, but he couldn't be sure he'd never heard her say it; she'd liked to play with language, roll foreign words around on her tongue, then forget their meaning five minutes later. Whereas that shit stuck around in his head forever. Baka. Idiot. Fool.

"S'pose I am." Spike nodded, memories, thoughts, falling into place within his head, like he'd finally shaken them into a pattern he could recognize. He almost felt awake. Logical. Drunk-logic, though -- he could tell there was something he was missing, but couldn't see it. "Been you all along, has it?"

She jerked her head once, loose brown curls tumbling around Dru's thin face. "Not as you mean it, no."

"Rei." The laughing voice in his, in Xander's ear. The familiar titter of the hyena, with rings of shark teeth in its wide-open maw. Course it was her. Should've known it the minute I sussed I was dreaming. "Game's over. Bugger off. You've had your fun."

He was still startled that he could speak, and so easily, untouched by the ever-present fear that had accompanied him while he'd dreamed himself in Xander's body. So startled that when she lifted one hand to her mouth, he was stilled by it. So elegant. So beautifully oriental, even in Dru's tall, thin, European form. So much older than him, such a different sort of death she was. He was almost as mesmerized as he'd been by Drusilla's eyes, once.

"It isn't me, Suppaiku. Not really." A half-hidden chuckle, still, in her voice. She'd always been so amused by him, laughing secretly at something he'd never understand. "I am just... how did you once describe the war, to me? It's a banquet, Spike, and no one pays attention if you're dressed like the hired help." Her hand took in the dark around her, one swift motion. "I'm just here for the table leavings. I barely had to stir the pot."

"Sod the cryptic Betty Crocker metaphors, Reikoku." His fascination broke. Some part of him had suddenly had it up the here with inscrutable oriental cobbleshite. Call it lack of patience, call it just being Spike. He wasn't getting any younger, and he had things to do. What they were escaped him, but he was pretty sure he had things to do. "Just get out of my head. Kitchen's closed."

She smiled, flashing those extra rows of teeth in Dru's mouth. Shook her head again. "You don't understand, do you. Is it because you're a man? It can't be inherent in vampires; Drusilla was never this much of a fool. But your little boy, the one you say is nothing -- he is. Baka, just like you, down to the stubborn insistence that he can run and run forever, fast enough to escape the monsters that come in by his own invitation." She spoke slowly and clearly, as to a child. "This isn't your head."

He couldn't make sense of it -- had reached the end of his drunken wisdom, and could only stare at her. Rei-Dru sighed, and her sickly red outline flared.

"Do you understand now?" She grew taller, wider, morphed as fast as Dru herself could switch from human face to monster, but it wasn't catlike golden eyes that stared at him. Dark hair shortened, gray eyes darkened to liquid brown, and Spike saw before him what he'd seen in the mirror. Young, vulnerable, frightened. Xander.

He could hear an echo, somewhere on the other side of the darkness -- closer than last time. Angel's voice. It was Angel's voice, had been before. When did he get here? "I'll kill him. Have I mentioned that? Knock his brains out on the floor and make him lick up the mess, set his hair on fire, stick his eyeballs on a toasting fork and hold 'em over the flames til they pop, then rip out his spine and use it for a really short bookrack."

Hell, that was almost sweet. Sentimental old bastard. Part of Spike was distracted, a part that had craved that voice, saying those things to him, or the like, for several human lifetimes.

But before him, he saw what he'd been missing, all through this long walk in the dark, and not even his Sire's words could stop him from running to Xander.

"Yes, you've mentioned," Cordelia's voice. "And eww. If I didn't know that's your way of showing you're worried about Spike, I'd --- Angel!"

Spike felt himself grabbed from behind. Invisible arms held him tight, kept him from Xander. "Let me go!"

"Spike, are you... He's still asleep. Willow!" Angel's voice, so close, at his ear, now.

"Tara, do you have the stuff ready?" Red. Hell, who invited them all into his dream?

"Everything's here; we had it all in the bag anyway. I don't know if it'll work, though, Willow. I've never used this spell to wake someone up -- just to make them stay aware when they fall asleep."

"If it doesn't work, we wait some more. If it does, at least Spike'll be awake -- and maybe he can tell us what's happening with Xander. Angel, are you--"

"I'm ready."

"Let. Go. Of. Me." Spike growled, straining to reach the Xander who stood in front of him, one hand reaching up to cover his mouth, which wasn't like Xander at all.

"Let it happen, Spike. Go to them," Xander said. Rei? Spike's mind was getting fuzzier -- arms holding him back, voices in his ears of people who weren't there. "You'll only confuse him, if you stay. It's almost over, anyway. Just go."

Flash. Scent, stronger than anything. Strongest of senses for a vampire, and this smell... Copper and salt and rich and red and sweet, so unbelievably sweet. The first in the world, in his world, was Dru's, but this was older, stronger because the first time he'd accepted it, he'd had a choice. Male and known, completely known, in the dark, in a crowd, anywhere. Held in front of his nose and FLASH.

Eyes half open in too-bright light, fangs breaking free, Angel's face leaning over his shoulder, strong arms around him from behind. Spikecanyouhearme.

And a wrist, at his mouth. Single red pomegranate seed hovering just above his lips, something that, contrariwise, would draw him back into the light for good if he just opened his mouth and tasted. And it had been so long...

"Spike?" That voice. Face. Hair flickering between short and long. Like looking at Angel through old, smoked glass, the white of the room distorted into a cold, dank mineshaft, guttering candles everywhere, and Himself lying next to Spike, both of them sated and surprised with each other. A vein, offered to him, and once without hesitation, he'd lowered his mouth to it. "Will? Come on, come back to us."

He's tryin' to piss me off, see if I'll wake up just so I can thump him, Spike thought clearly, even as he had to beat down the part of himself that had never stopped answering to that name. His eyelids flickered.

"Spike?" Tara's voice, tentative. Afraid. For him? Then more sure. "Morpheus, clear the eye. Release the mind that walks your world. You have no hold." Something sharp pierced the fog of Sireblood smell, for a second. Hensbane?

But then Angel, voice and scent so close that it drowned everything out. "Spike, dammit, just wake up!"

Spike opened his eyes wide, saw both worlds at once. The hand before his mouth, in the lighted room, the boy in front of him, in the dark.

"Not. Without. Xander." Spike turned his head to one side, felt the drop of Angel's blood roll down his cheek, and closed his eyes.

Forced himself to fall back down into the darkness, Tara's voice following him. "Morpheus, clear the eye. Awaken the mind that walks your world."

It came in a rush. The taste of cider on his tongue, the not-quite-drunk he'd been since then, wiped away. Clear, truly clear, now. Memory whistled past him. Words exchanged like cups of poison. Dull ache of confusion, of 'what did I do?' and the stabbing pain in the center of his chest, and walking away.

Drinking, and sitting, hating himself. The girls coming in, rescuing him from some imagined drunken stupor, and the words he'd spoken about Xander, bitter as crushed bones in his mouth. Then, walking in and seeing her, there, monstrous in ways he couldn't compete with as gray smoke coiled over his boy. The heartbeat he didn't possess, freezing up in his chest.

Walking to him, and touching, and falling. Wind and rain and running and thumping heart and teeth and animal growls and laughing faces that he knew only in their older versions. Their deader versions, some of them. Some he'd never seen at all, never even seen pictures of. Dark eyes in the mirror, and Xander's voice on his tongue.

"Christ." He heard his own voice echo loud around him, then disappear into the dark.

Soft white-noise laughter, in Rei's voice, now. "Hardly. I should say, it has not been your head. Your dream. You simply bullheaded your way into your boy's, and now, finally, you are separate again. Because he was finally frightened enough to let go of you; let go of everything."

Something tore at Spike's ribcage, almost like a heartbeat-- only it had claws and fangs. His own growling animal wasn't fooled by a soft voice, by something that pretended to be harmless. It screamed at him. mineminemineminemine... shetouchedhimhe'smine The rest of him, for once since he'd caged it below the surface, agreed. No need to pretend that Xander was less than everything, not now, not here. She knew, though apparently not enough.

"You don't touch what's mine," he snarled, as he finally understood.

His descent halted, and Xander stood before him again. Not Xander. Xander-Rei, a thing too obscene for words. Spike stared at her, concentrating. I control the vertical and the horizontal around here, right? He willed her to be as she truly was, as he remembered her, and Xander's body faded into fog. Reformed, a small, straight figure in leather, with long, long hair, and tilted black eyes. You can't have his face. He's mine.

The Gaki sighed. "I've no intention of harming him. I told you -- he's doing this to himself. It won't be long, Spike. Go back to your friends. Sit and wait, and tell them the boy will wake up soon."

"Let Xander go," he ordered, gravel-mouthed, "or so help me, you'll find out just how much I learned from the eyeball-popper out there -- and just how much I taught him." He turned around, ready to lay hands on her throat, but there was no one there.

"Spike, just open your eyes, and get out of my way. You're making a fool of yourself."

"I'm not leavin' him alone with you," Spike snarled, and though he knew where he was, knew he couldn't touch her, the demon was still screaming at him that there was a point to be made. He lunged at her, hands reaching for a narrow white throat.

"Be a fool, then, Suppaiku," she hissed. "Tilt at windmills, be his knight, try to snatch him up and carry him away -- but it isn't me you'll have to save him from."

He sailed right through her, falling again in the darkness.

"Baka."

Spike didn't know what direction to flip the bird in, since he couldn't see her -- so he just told her loudly to fuck off, in Japanese. Followed by every other insult he could think of in that language. Made for something to do while he fell.

*****

Lights on. Have they only been out for a second? Xander looks for Buffy, to tell her she has to grow up, fight the thing that's outside. Even though it's his to fight, he wants to run to her. One girl in all the world, and it's not him, and for a moment, he wants to believe Willow was right. That it's okay to let the Chosen One do it.

Then he sees his friends, sitting at their desks. Buffy. Willow. Tara. Cordy.

"No."

He can't look at the room, can't look at his friends, can't look at what covers the floor. You invited it inside. Can't look, so he doesn't. Can't see you...

*****

Spike fell until he hit, same as before. This time, though, he knew where he was, right away. He was back in the classroom -- and it was a charnel house.

A picture so pretty that the demon shouted loudly at him to get down on the linoleum and just roll in the blood. He didn't, but Spike almost slipped in it anyway, when one boot skidded in a puddle of red. His own boots, his own jeans, his own coat slapping around his calves, own arm reaching out for balance. His own nose, smelling the richness of copper-scented death, oxidizing as it pooled around the bodies slumped in their desks.

If this is Xander's dream, not mine, then... Bloody hell. Literally. What the fuck lives in his head? God, no wonder he came apart on me when he had that nightmare.

Spike walked over to the nearest desk, and lifted Cordelia's head. The hundred-dollar haircut swung bouncily away to reveal a savaged throat, the ludicrous literary vampire-hickeys replaced with death as he knew it -- as he'd dealt it a thousand thousand times. Great gaping, ragged hole, torn flesh, tiny gobbets of meat. He let it fall into the pool of blood on her desktop. It's not real. She's not dead; she's out there annoying the Sire, more power to her.

Willow and Tara were the same, bloodless white hands joined as if they'd planned to work some spell to defend themselves. But Rei was immune to magic; whatever dream-monster she'd sent after Xander would be just as well-protected from Xander's imaginary witches.

Vampire. Dream-vampire. He winced. The thought hadn't escaped him; he didn't need reminding from snarky mind-voice number whatever. Why's she sending vampires to chase him, of all things? Why would he be afraid of us, with all the beasties he's seen? He walked around, lifting heads, letting them fall, hoping that the next one wouldn't be Xander. It's a dream. It's his dream. He won't be dead. Just need to figure out where he is, so I can wake him up and get him outta here. He focused on that, ignoring the grumbling thing that was telling him to feast on the table leavings. Not like it's real blood, moron.

Spike the detective, he suddenly thought. Just his own brand of insanity, to picture himself searching for Xander, wearing that black fedora, the room in black and white, the blood on the floor looking like the chocolate syrup they really did use in old films. He could suddenly feel the pressure of the band around his forehead, see the shadow of the brim. Spike reached up to touch the hat he'd dreamed into place on his head, and almost grinned.

But the blood was still red and bright, and the desk where he and Xander's dream body had sat was still empty, except for the still-wrapped bar of chocolate Willow had offered, and Xander had refused. He hadn't turned into Sam Spade, with all the clues laid out in front of him - or if they were, he couldn't read them.

Spike pocketed the candy bar absently, aware that it was no more real than the blood, than the hat, but unable to let it sit there, somehow. He looked across the aisle; on the empty desk in front of Willow lay two pieces of paper. One piece, rather, ripped in two: "SA" on the first fragment, "VED" on the second. They hadn't been, had they. Not by witch-powers, and not by the Slayer in the seat across from them.

Changeable ocean-coloured eyes stared at him, sightless and dull. The fighting light was gone, that had always made him unsure if he wanted to kill or kiss her, until she opened her mouth and let out that mind-bleaching whine. She was still the child she'd been when he'd last seen her, before the lights went out -- the little normal girl who didn't want to fight anything, who blew Giles off when she first got to Sunnydale. Spike heard Xander's words again, in a darkened fake-theatre, so many hours ago that it seemed like days. That little girl's pouting mouth was forever closed, now.

"It's just a dream," he said aloud. Buffy wasn't dead -- and any regret he felt at the sight of those lightless eyes was probably just because he hadn't gotten to be the one to extinguish them. "Where is he?" he asked her, quietly. "What happened to you? What's he running from?"

"Spike?"

He whirled around from Buffy's desk, his own reflexes working faster than his mind's ability to recognize the voice. A head covered with pale blonde hair lifted from a desk by the window.

"Harmony? You're alive?"

She nodded, looking terrified. Mindblown, and Harmony hadn't much of a mind to blow. She sat up, and looked around at the classroom. "Well, not alive."

Spike smacked his forehead. "It's a vampire. Course it wouldn't touch you."

Harmony shook her head. "That doesn't matter. Not here. I just hid, and he didn't see me."

"He, who? Who did this? And where's Xander?" Spike walked over to her, as he asked.

Terror was suddenly replaced by an unattractive scorn. "Oh, him. The little crybaby scaredy-cat. He ran. He's gone."

Spike grabbed her by the hair and drew her up, so she stood on tiptoe, face strained with discomfort -- an old, familiar position. "Where did he go, Harm, and what's chasing him? I don't have time to put up with your shit."

Her expression changed again. Frightened blue eyes looked straight back at him, and he recoiled. Blinked and let go. Not because of any guilt at hurting Harmony -- she'd known what she was getting into when they got together, played the pain games as much as he had -- just hadn't been willing to admit to it when called on it.

But.

This wasn't Harmony's dream, was it. He recognized that shattered look -- he'd glimpsed it in dark eyes, by silver streetlight, as his lover shuddered in his lap at Cordelia's place. He'd watched it unblinking, a few nights earlier, until those eyes had finally fluttered closed, and he'd snuck off to go find the hand lotion.

"Xander?" he said softly.

Wild shaking of the mussed blonde hair as she slid down into her seat. "Eww! Do I look like a boy? Especially him. You're nuts!"

But this wasn't Harmony's denial face; it was Xander's -- and it wasn't just her head shaking, but her whole body. Spike winced, flexed the hand that had hurt her, almost cursing his lucidity, now. Brilliant, Spike. You might as well be the thing that's scaring him. "Xan..."

"He's a freak, and a fraidy-cat, and he ran away. He always runs away. He used to run off the playground when we were little, when the big kids came, and Willow and..." Harmony lowered her head. "Him. Willow and him used to stick up for Xander, but he didn't deserve it. He always screws everything up."

"Xan..." The shaking started again, and Spike stopped. Reached out a hand and placed it atop her head, gently. Sure, still, of whose head this really was. "All right. Harm. Who's 'him'? Somebody you all knew in school? Why's Xander afraid of him?"

"Because. Because Xander fucked up. I told you. Lame-boy fucked up and let him in, and lame-boy fucked up and let him go in the first place, and lame-boy fucked up and couldn't... couldn't clean up his own mess. And now see what he did." She pointed to the corpses all around her, of her friends. Xander's friends. "Over and over. It just happens over and over, because he's too chicken to stop it."

Spike leaned over the desk, and brushed aside the long strands of blonde fringe hanging in her eyes. If he stared close, he could see the outline of the word that Willow had scrubbed off, faint on the skin of her forehead. He looked past that, though, to the eyes he knew, whatever color they might be pretending to at the moment. "Tell me."

Frown. Blink, and SLAM. The room disappeared.

Dark again. Running through the cemetery once more, only this time he could see Xander. Like the black and white film he'd been imagining before, grainy because dreaming Xander couldn't really have seen himself, could only imagine what he'd looked like then, as he fed it to Spike now.

The hand in Xander's was Willow's, so young and white and frightened in the moonlight that her eyes were just dark holes in the pale face. The body between them was tall, male. Beaky and gangly, and as young as the ones who carried him. No one Spike had ever seen before, not on the streets of Sunnydale, not in the raid on the high school, not in any of the pictures he'd rifled through in Xander's albums or shoeboxes. Spike could see his throat, as that imagined movie camera zoomed in. Bleeding chocolate-syrup wounds, closer to the neat little fake bites on Cordelia's neck, than the raw mess it was now. Somebody'd been snacking, and got interrupted, and now they were running.

Then there were snarls, the ones he'd heard in that brief flash in the hallway. A male vamp closing in from the left, and from the right, a blonde in a short skirt and sweater. In the darkness, it took a second for Spike to recognize it as a Catholic school uniform. In the fuzziness of Xander's memory, it took two beats longer for him to know the face, vamped and grinning.

Darla. He knew she'd been here, knew Angel had staked her, but it had never even occurred to Spike that Xander had met her.

Met her? Spike laughed, painfully, as he watched it happen. Met her. Right.

He watched as Xander had his friend torn from his arms while she laughed, while Willow shouted, "Jesse!" into the darkness, and Xander stood there, clutching Red for all he was worth, lest somebody pull her away from him too. Then they ran for a pool of light where Spike could see the slight figure of the Slayer standing. Xander never looked over his shoulder, though Darla's laughter echoed out of the night at him, until the end. Until he stared back into utter darkness, with nothing visible but the tombstones.

And now Spike knew who wasn't "SAVED," didn't he. Someone who'd come back in Xander's dreams to wreak havoc among his former friends. Normally, he'd say 'Hurrah, good times' to the havoc-wreaking -- but not here. Not in his boy's head. He almost muttered an apology to Rei, for thinking she'd invented the horror herself -- until he recalled how long Xander must have been asleep. She may not have written the script, but she's been making him watch the flick. Not letting him wake up. Spike opened his eyes. He was back in the classroom, standing over the desk. Harmony looked up at him, frowning again. "It's no big deal. The Hellmouth gets kids all the time. I got vamped, and he never freaked out over me."

"You weren't his best friend. He wasn't holding your hand." Spike wiped the hair out of her face, and looked at her forehead again. Then he bent down, and put his hand on hers. "It wasn't your fault, Xan."

She stiffened. "I'm not Xander! You're as crazy as he is. Loony as that pretty, perfect ex-girlfriend you never shut up about. Why don't you go find her? Go read her the yellow pages or something."

"He's not crazy. And you're not Harmony." Spike spoke over the closing of his throat, because he knew it wasn't really there. His mind only made him think he had a throat to close, as he remembered the look on Xander's face, and him the utter moron who couldn't pick it up, that he'd been rabbiting on about Dru at lunch like it was her he'd barely missed staying in bed with that morning, instead of the boy who'd sat next across the table from him.

He knelt next to the desk, and said to her -- to Xander, "Xan... It's over. You're safe. None of this is real -- it's just a bad dream. All you have to do is open your eyes and wake up."

"I'm NOT Xander! And it's not over. It's not safe. Nobody's safe. Leave me alone!" She was-- that is, he was, Xander, though. The face melted and blurred before Spike's eyes. Panicked dark pupils, huge in liquor coloured irises. Dark brown hair.

"No. I won't do that." Spike leaned forward, and gathered the figure in the desk into his arms. It really didn't matter what Xander looked like -- young, old, girl, boy. "You are safe, Xander. I won't let anything hurt you. You just have to wake up."

"No! You're not real!" Xander pushed Spike away with a force that he would only possess in dreams, at least as long as he lived in a human body. Before Spike could even rise from the sprawl he had landed in, Xander was running from the room.

No way. I'm not losin' you, not lettin' you get lost in the dark. Not again. This time when you run, somebody catches you who loves you.

Spike was after him in a second, racing out the door and down the hall. The building was dark now, smelled of charred meat and death, as it should. He could just see Xander's tennis shoes disappearing around the corner, and he followed, picking up speed. He mightn't be Sam Spade, but this, he could do. He tipped his imaginary detective hat, as he passed the empty suit that Xander's mouthy little principal had been wearing, laid out on the floor.

They ran past lockers and classrooms. Past the empty library, where Spike could hear sounds coming from the Hellmouth within that made him glad it had never opened when he'd been around. Through the door at the end of the hall and out into the rain again.

*****

It looks like Spike. It sounds like Spike. But it doesn't talk like Spike, and it's telling him things that he wants too much to believe. It's okay. I won't let anybody hurt you. Too easy to accept, but that's not Spike. Spike's using him for a warm hole and somebody to share a bed with, and the echo of someone he can't ever have back. Xander knows that, knows he'll settle for that, too. If he lets himself believe anything else...

He used to let himself believe that if he just wished hard enough, he'd come to school in the morning and everybody would be in their seats, no empty one, no memories of the night that no one ever talked about, to show him why it was empty. He'd lean over and poke Jesse in the arm and point out how short Miss Wasserman's skirt was, and Willow would roll her eyes, and Buffy...

No. That way lies Xander in a rubber room, and he might be a little bit crazy, but he's not that crazy. He knows. He knows what happened and he knows what's chasing him with Spike's face now, and whose face is really under it.

Fine. He knows where to run. Knows it's always led to this, that this is what he comes back to night after night, but never quite has the balls to face. This time, though... It will be different. It might be faster than him, but that doesn't matter, for once, because he's not running away. He won't end up purely by accident at Brookside Park, with Giles on the swing, with Spike sitting next to him, arms open, waiting to almost rescue him in time. Not now.

Past Buffy's house, past Willow's, lights out. No welcome there, but why would there be, when they're dead, back in that classroom. Across sidewalks and over gutters and down alley shortcuts that he knows from years of running, in dreams, in life.

For once, he's not running from; he's running to.

*****

Spike ran, never looking at anything but Xander's shoes, flashing white in the distance. Familiar parts of town, bathed in the sheen of rain, fading as Xander passed, because the dream was only concerned with what Xander could see.

He thought he had an idea where they were going, at one point, when he caught sight of a familiar drive, a suburban house, story and a half, Bel Aire parked neatly at the back. There. Home? Xander's illusion of a safe place?

But Xander paused for a second only, by the basement window, almost long enough for Spike to catch up, then was off again. As Spike came near the open window, coat slapping against his calves, he heard the sound of smacking, steady, flesh on flesh. Growled and slowed, almost stopped, thinking this time - chip or no chip, if they hurt him...

Then, a voice more familiar than anything asked in a hopeless muddled English accent, "What am I punishing you for, Xander?"

Time froze, for a second, and Spike wondered just how stupid you had to be, to join Angel's little detective agency. As stupid as him? "Fine, I get it, all right?" Spike shouted after his fleeing lover. "You think it's all your fault. But it's not real, Xander. It was a long time ago. Just bloody stop!"

But Xander didn't stop, didn't act like he even heard, so Spike ran again, faster now, hearing his Docs scuff in the grass and on the gravel and down the road.

*****

Away from home, just needed to check on the place, make sure everything was okay. Away and splashing down the street where he's always been going, where he goes all the time, when his eyes are open and he's meeting Buffy, Willow, Anya there. Rhythmic thudding behind him on the road, didn't lose the thing with Spike's face, but then he didn't expect to. He knows where he's going, wants it to follow.

Music getting louder in the distance as he hits the bad side of town. Bad side, like there's a good side, like there's anything good about the Hellmouth on a Friday night. Lights of the Bronze shining like a beacon.

Betcha didn't think I'd come here, didja. Didn't think I had the 'nads. Well, why the hell not? If it's gonna be anywhere, might as well do it here.Heavy beat, not of feet behind him now, but synthesized drums, from inside.

He knows it didn't happen quite this way. The song was over, ending as he and Willow and Giles climbed from the car and snuck around back, as he's doing now. But he'd heard enough, to remember it now. He'd known the song already, had the words playing in his head over the silence and the sound of his own heart beating as the door opened and they'd slipped inside. How are you feelin'... do you feel okay? Cause I don't... He pulls on the back door. It isn't locked.

Only him now, only Xander, as it always should've been. This is his deal. Buffy can kill the guy onstage, fine. Throw a cymbal at somebody, whatever. Giles, Willow... This isn't their job. It's his. He was the one who didn't keep an eye on Jesse in the first place, and that was his job, right? Not my day to watch him, they'd always joked, but it was his day to watch both of them, and he'd only held on to Willow, and now...

Now he's here. In the dark, with the music and the bodies, pushing at each other. Here, and there's a stake in his hand, and he has a job to do. "Have you come to kill what's left of my smile?" someone sings from the speakers, but he thinks maybe it's already dead.

*****

Where? Where was he? Spike pushed his way through the crowd, past the press of faceless, dancing teenagers. Literally faceless, as if they didn't matter to Xander, didn't star in this particular flick, so his mind didn't have time to draw eyes and noses on them.

It was the Bronze, but tilted. Out of sync. Music too loud, dancers moving in slow motion. The sweat and stink of too many people not perfume in his nose, but madness. The dance club was lit eerily, lights flickering on and off.

"I wish I could've saved you..." the teenage whine-band moaned, and the lights went red. People screamed, and Spike could sense panic. Pushing and running. He moved to the dance floor, cutting through the crowd as if they - or he - didn't exist, to see what it was.

Vampires. There were vamps in gameface out there. Not really doing anything but growling, shoving, causing pandemonium -- which was good enough entertainment, but you'd think they'd be biting, draining, tearing it up. Or at least pushing people up towards the stage where the Slayer, somehow alive again because Xander's dream didn't have to make sense, stood in the spotlight, next to a vamp at least a foot taller than Angel. Frozen.

Spike could've kicked himself for even bothering to look, for not figuring it out sooner. He'd have to turn in the detective hat and admit he was the sidekick in front of all and sundry, at this rate. Frozen. Because they were window-dressing. Props, in Xander's nightmare. The only place anything would be happening was where Xander was. Everything else was a distraction.

He looked around for something that looked real, not random. Listened for actual words, over the pounding of the music. A scream -- a loud, familiar one. Cordelia's voice, followed by shouting. "Get off me!"

That'd be it, then.

*****

Xander knows the words by heart, though he never told them what he said, though he doesn't ever dream about this part, just running from it. Until now. The words live in his head, here, at this hell-place that's just... the Bronze, out in the real world.

"Jesse, man. Don't make me do it." Here, now, he's a kid again, Valley-speak in his mouth, sweat in his eyes.

The thing with its back to him, the thing that followed him here, stands up from where it's crouched over Cordy. Turns around. Looks him up and down.

"You again? Man, don't you have anything better to do? You could dream about naked chicks or something, you know." Jesse's face is human. Smiling, even though it's more of a sneer than a real smile.

"Jesse. I know there's still a part of you in there." Even now... even though he knows it's not real, hasn't ever been real, Xander wants to believe that it's true.

A part of someone who played in the sandbox with him when he was six. Who made up the sharks that live there, because he had the longest legs, and could jump from one edge to the other the easiest. Who loaned him milk money and always gave Xander half of his Nutty Bar at lunch, and laughed at him when he broke it apart and licked all the peanut butter off before he ate the chocolate-covered wafers. Who brass-balled his way into the back room at Video Hut to rent 'Sinderella,' freshman year, when Xander was too much of a chicken.

"Or dream about naked dudes, if that's your thing now," Jesse goes on as if Xander hadn't spoken. "But this," he points at Cordy, at the darkness, at the stage, back at Xander. "It's gettin' old, bud. Hell, even I'm sick of it, and I like terrorizing girls. Or would've, anyway, if I hadn't got staked."

"Wh-- What?"

"Dude, you're almost twenty. Get over the trauma, already. I'm dead. Everybody else moved on. What's wrong with you?"

There's a script, dammit. There's a song playing, there's heat and light and bodies, and there's Jesse standing in front of him. He's supposed to vamp out now, and Xander's supposed to try to kill him, and fail. Like he always fails, at the important things. He's not supposed to be talking like this. How can Xander answer that speech with what he really said, when no one was looking, while everyone was watching Buffy?

He does anyway. "Jesse, I don't wanna kill you. I don't wanna lose you, man. What am I supposed to do?"

Why doesn't Jesse say what he really did, which was, "You kill me, Xan, or you die. That's really all there is."

Instead, he says, in Spike's voice, "You wake up, Xander," as he starts to turn his head. Then he collapses into dust.

*****

The stake in his hand was a good one; he'd crafted it from the memory of one the Slayer had held against his chest, while he taunted her about her love life. He could feel the scratch of wood on skin, even now. And it worked the way they're supposed to work, the way every stake he'd held in the last six months had worked on every one of his fellow vamps whom he'd slain, post-chip.

The boy started to whirl, as he said the words, then, POOF.

"It's over," Spike said gently, as Xander stared at him in shock. "I told you -- I won't let anybody hurt you, ever again. Not even you."

Xander said nothing, just stared at him, open-mouthed. Looked from the stake in Spike's hand to the one in his own. Finally, he moved forward, and Spike opened his arms.

Xander hit him, a hard right to the jaw. "Dammit! Look what you did!"

Just like before, in Xander's dream world, when he needed strength, he had it. Spike went down, the stake in his hand clattering to the floor. Xander followed swiftly, throwing his stake away as well -- but he wasn't seeing to Spike, or apologizing. He was gathering up the pile of dust on the floor, sweeping it into his hands.

"Come on. Come back. Come back!" He was almost in tears, his voice raw and hoarse. Xander threw the handful of dust into the air, and in the outline it formed, Spike saw fear.

He's mad. He really is broken into little pieces. As the lean, tall shape reformed itself in front of Xander, Spike heard laughter over his shoulder. He sat up, to find a hand being offered to him.

Darla's hand, extending from the white sleeve of that kinky schoolgirl uniform. Her face was human now, as it hadn't been in Xander's memory of the cemetery, and as haughtily beautiful as Spike remembered it.

"Of course I look like you remember her," Rei agreed. It hadn't occurred to him that she could hear his thoughts, but of course she could. It was all thought, here. She'd known what he was thinking all along, told him to back off, but he wouldn't listen. "You're providing my features," she reminded him. "The boy is too busy resurrecting his friend, so that he can fail to kill him again."

Spike rubbed his jaw, the dream punch as painfully real as the one Xander had thrown at him at his own request, on Giles' front porch, under the lamplight. Think, Phillip Bloody Marlowe, he snarked at himself. What is it. What am I missing? Why didn't it work for me to kill the kid? Why's Xander brought him back?

A soft voice answered him, from deep within his own head. Why does he come back here, Spike? He has nightmares, yes, of course, lots of people do, but why this boy, chasing him? Why over and over, as he said? Why?

Because he wanted to.

"He's... not a boy," Spike said slowly. "He's not mad, either."

*****

Xander holds the stake up. He knows how to use it, has known for years now, though he only had a vague idea back then. He's not Buffy, but he can defend himself. "Come on, Jesse. Let's...just get this over with." If he drags it out, maybe it'll last a little longer, this time.

But this time it's Jesse who sticks to the script. "Okay... Let's deal with this. Jesse was an excruciating loser who couldn't get a date with anyone in the sighted community! Look at me. I'm a new man!"

"Yeah. Look at him, Xander."

The voice is Spike's, but Spike can't be here. Spike can't have staked Jesse for him, like some random moron had done it the last time. That was just his own mind, coming up with newer and loopier ways to make him fuck this up. This voice now, it isn't real.

"None of it's real, Xander. It's a dream. But I think you know that."

There's laughter, from Miss Thing, who's wearing the bitchy girl vamp's face now, smiling blonde and pretty and just another distracting thing to throw at him. It's not mocking, though. It's appreciative, admiring of what his dream-Spike said.

"Very good, Spike. You figured out after two weeks of sleeping with him, what it took me a whole night to determine."

Spike, on the floor, rubs his jaw. Picks up the hat he was wearing and puts it on his head -- and why is Spike wearing a hat, in this dream? Especially Xander's hat. "Well, you're the professional. I'm just his lover. Remind me to kill you, by the way, when this is over. I told you, nobody fucks with what's mine." He starts to stand.

"Hey, is somebody gonna kill me here, or what?" Jesse asks with a growl. Xander looks, and sees the face that looks like Spike's, but not, yellow eyes, wrinkled brow. Jesse's holding his hand out, and in it is Xander's stake. "Cause, y'know, I've got things to do."

Xander tries not to take it, but Jesse presses it into his hand.

"It's time. I've been waiting for you to get here for years, bud."

*****

"But he does this to himself," Rei said. "I told you -- I'm only collecting the leftovers. This is a hell of his own invention -- in a way, it's much more creative than Gaki-do."

Spike held out his hand, then, and grasped her outstretched one. Stood, and looked at her. Subject of enough of his own nightmares, but here, in this half-lit place, he had to wonder why. Whatever Darla had done, she was dust, as was the boy who stood before Xander. They were the ones who were still alive, or what passed for it. He and Xander. Angel. Even Dru, wherever she was, and the Slayer, at a hotel in Santa Barbara shagging her brains out with Agent Huckleberry Finn. And Xander had found his own way of coping with that.

He spoke past Darla's face, to the one behind it. "Xander may've invented it -- but you pushed him to it, tonight. He said he didn't need the bravest, wisest knight in all the land to tuck him in, before he stomped off upstairs. He never heard that from me, and he's barely met Dru."

She smiled, a small, sly Darla-smile. "We spoke. He's very brave, your boy."

He snarled, though this time he knew better than to bother letting the beast have reign. "You messed about with his head, Reikoku." A little grin of his own made its way to his lips. "Only I'm allowed to do that. You... If I ever see you again, I'll happily kick you back into Gaki-do so hard your great grand-mum'll get dragged down there with you.""

"But it's about to end. If he plays this dream through to its end, I can take it away, as I did yours. That I get a free meal, a delicious one, is merely a side-effect -- he'll be free of this nightmare forever. Isn't that what you want for him?"

Spike stared coldly at her. "It's his head. He's a grown man. It's not about what I want." With that, he turned away. Walked over to the two who stood next to the wall, the imaginary dead boy, the real, living man.

"Xander?" There was no answer, but Spike hardly expected one. He tapped the vampire on the shoulder. "Er. Jesse, right?"

"Yeah, man. You mind? We got something happening, here."

"I'll just be a minute. Have a Coke and a smile and relax."

Jesse blinked, as real as Xander wanted to make him, and slowly moved out of Spike's way.

"Xan..."

Now Xander looked up at him. "I have to kill him."

"No, you don't. You don't have to kill him." Spike put his hands on Xander's shoulders, and watched as his lover changed. The shape of his haircut, from long in front, to long all over. The width of his frame, the muscles in his chest and arms. Spike could feel it, spreading out across Xander's body.

"I do. I've gotta. It's gotta be me. Nobody can do it for me."

"No. Nobody can do it for you -- but you don't have to do it, Xander." Spike pulled him close. Felt the warm body stiffen in his embrace.

"I'm not a little kid. I'm not crazy. I know he's dead. I know. You don't have to take care of me."

He tried to pull away, but Spike held on. "No. You don't need anybody to take care of you. You manage just fine on your own. Think I might need somebody to take care of me, mind you... Your brain's a scary place." A shudder against him, and Spike touched his hair. "Xander, you don't have to kill him."

Xander shook his head, as wildly as he had when he'd been Harmony, in the classroom. "I know he's dead! I told you. But here, he's not, and I'm s'posed to..."

"Why can't you do it, then?" Spike whispered. "You know he's dead. You know it's not real. You know it's just a dream. So why can't you kill him?" He knew the answer, but it wasn't him who needed to hear it.

"Because..." Xander whispered quietly.

"Come on. You can tell me. It's just me, Xan. Nobody else who matters can hear." Rei stood off in the distance, white checks in Darla's uniform glowing under the light. Waiting to eat her fill. Not if Spike could help it. And Jesse... was frozen in the light, forever standing with the face of a monster, just out of Xander's reach.

"Because it's the only way I can have him." Xander's dream breath was warm against Spike's face. "Out there...nobody talks about him. Nobody remembers he was real, not even Willow. Sometimes I think I imagined him. But here, even like this, he's real. Even if he's a monster, at least... at least I can see him."

Spike hadn't been keeping the monsters at bay, sleeping with his arms around Xander every night -- at least not all of them. He'd just been keeping Xander from seeing the one that he wanted to see, even if he didn't know it when he was awake. The one he was willing to brave the nightmare to see again. Spike tightened his arms around Xander, and closed his eyes.

"You think I'm crazy. You're not even the real Spike, you're just me, and you still think I'm crazy. Like her. Like Dru."

"No. No, luv, I don't."

"And you think I'm a wimp, 'cause I couldn't kill him, and somebody else had to do it for me. Not even on purpose. Just brushed him up against the stake and ffft. Gone. Xander, the fucking coward, who can't stake one vamp at point blank range. You only hang around me because I remind you of Drusilla. "Cause it makes you feel less pathetic, if you can take care of poor loony Xander."

Once, the words had made him turn away, but now, Spike knew what was prompting them. "No. I don't. I don't think you're a wimp, or a coward. I think you're about the bravest person I know, for comin' back here, walkin' into hell night after night, just to see somebody you loved."

The Bronze darkened around them, Jesse looking once at them, then fading away completely. The only light was the soft red glow that surrounded Rei. Spike watched her shake her head once, then smile, then she, too, faded, and they were left in darkness. There was only Xander, in his arms.

"I'm afraid," Spike heard, after long silence.

"There's nothin' to be afraid of. You just have to wake up now."

"That's what I'm afraid of. I don't wanna lose this. Don't wanna forget him. Don't you get it? I am crazy. Fuck, maybe I do need to be taken care of. But who the hell would want somebody like me?"

"I do. I want you. You're mine." Spike whispered it into Xander's skin, the things he'd been afraid to say for so long.

"But you're not real." A sudden, hard push away from him, and Spike was staring at Xander as he knew him now. "That's not real, it's just what I want to hear. You're not even a good fake-Spike -- he'd never say things like that. Get away from me. Go."

"Xan--"

"You're not real! Go! Get out of my head!"

The lights went out again.

*****

Spike opened his eyes, to find himself lying in bed. Just a dream. Just my dream, after all, he thought for a moment. But his arms were still around Xander, and he'd never yet had a bad dream while Xander lay next to him.

"Spike's awake!" There was a joy he hadn't expected, in Willow's voice. She leaned over the bed, smiling widely. "Spike, you did it -- or one of you did. She's gone!"

"Gone? Huuhhh...who?" he yawned. Tired. For all the dreaming he'd been doing, he was tired as all hell. Spike laid his head down on Xander's chest. Fuck who knew what. They'd sort it out in the morning. "Gone?" He blinked sleepily. "Hey, how'd I get over here?" He'd been knocked across to the other bed, right?

"You ran over to Xander, when we tried to wake you up," Tara told him. "Angel couldn't even stop you."

"Yeah, that spell didn't exactly work like a charm," Willow said, sounding momentarily disappointed. Then she was cheerful again. "But who cares -- the ghostie's gone, anyway! She just kinda... dissolved, a few minutes ago. Did you chase her away?"

"Yeah, kinda. I guess. Hey, Xan, budge over," Spike murmured. But Xander wouldn't. Spike looked up at his face. His eyes were closed. Spike sat up, never letting go. "Xander?" No answer.

"Hey, Xander, come on. Wake up. Everything's okay, now." Willow was leaning over them, shaking Xander's shoulder. Spike growled, lightly, and she stood back, brow furrowing. "Spike?"

"What do you mean everything's okay? My boss is dating one of my ex-boyfriends, an evil vampire is cuddling up with the other, and Lindsey freakin' MacDonald knew about the second one before I did!" Cordelia shouted from the other side of the room. "I can not be the last to know something like this. It's not allowed!"

"Cordy, shut up," Willow said.

"I'm not your ex-boyfriend," Angel's pet Watcher protested quietly. "And Angel and I aren't dating."

"No, you're just making out behind the potted plants. And you and I went out. Once."

"Cordy, Wesley, shut up." Willow's voice was suddenly strident, loud. Commanding. Spike could picture the leatherette vampire version Xander had told him about, suddenly. "Xander still hasn't woken up."

Then, Cordelia was quiet. Spike felt a hand on his shoulder, and was about to risk a chip-zap to growl a lot more meaningfully at Willow, when he smelled the faint scent of dried blood on the wrist, and the utter familiarity of the owner. "Spike?"

"Sod off. I'll talk to you later." Spike pulled Xander upright, and spoke straight into his face. "Wake up." Nothing. "Fucking hell, Xander, open your eyes. It's over. The ghost's gone, the good guys won, everybody's throwing a great whopping party, and you're missing it."

Tara walked to the side of the bed, and laid her hand on Xander's hair. "I don't think he's really asleep, Spike," she said, worriedly. "He's just... not awake."

Spike growled, again. "I know that, Madame Cleo. He's staying in there on purpose."

Willow moved to her side. "But... he can't be. Why?" She sounded hurt, like Xander was doing this just to get at her.

"Because it's the only place he can get things that you won't even bloody talk to him about!" Spike snapped, uncaring at the moment whether she deserved it or not, and knowing full well that she wouldn't understand him.

He turned his head away from them. Away from all of them, away from everything except the man in his arms. "Xander, I know you can hear me. So you have a choice. You can either listen to me make an ass of m'self in front of all of your friends, or you can open your eyes and tell me to stuff it -- but I'm not lettin' go of you, and I'm not shutting up 'til you do." Silence, except for rain against the glass doors, and he was staring at closed eyelids. "Fine. I warned you, mind. I don't do lengthy speeches, so if I start repeating m'self, somebody jog me, and I'll throw in a bit of Much Ado About Nothing, or something. Here goes."

Deep breath. He could do this. Didn't matter who was listening. Didn't matter what they thought, or what happened to him after. Just Xander. "I don't think you're nuts, except in a good way. I think you're bloody stupid for not ever telling anybody what was wrong, but not insane. I do think you're crazy, though, if you decide to spend the rest of your life inside your skull with a dead boy, when there's live people out here who love you. Least one who misses him as much as you do, I bet. He'll be there, next time, if you want to go back, Xander."

Even if it meant Spike sleeping on the floor every night at the foot of the bed, guarding him from the real monsters while he met with the one he wanted to see. Assuming, of course, Xander didn't send him packing, for letting Princess Vision Girl and the witches hear all this. The witches, who made small sounds of surprise, as one or both finally twigged to what he was talking about -- but Spike looked only at Xander.

"I don't think you're a wimp because you couldn't kill him -- it wasn't your responsibility, Xander. I think you even know that. But if you're too scared to come out and face the fact that it was really me in there, and everything I said was true, then yeah. You are a coward."

There was a stirring in his arms, but the eyes remained stubbornly closed.

"Because this isn't about Dru, Xander. This was never about Dru. It's about you, and it's about me, and when I said I wanted you, I meant it. Not for sex, pet. For you. I never meant it to happen, but it did, and there's nothin' I can do about it. I'm sorry if it pisses you off, but there's at least one dead person out here who loves you too."

A flicker of the eyelids. He was trading his dignity for an eyelash-flicker. Just a flicker, as Spike gave up everything he'd been holding so close, so afraid to tell for fear that Xander would... would what, own him? Hell, I wore a bleedin' Hawaiian shirt for the man! Might as well tattoo property of Xander Harris on my arse and be done with it. Besides, what dignity did he have left, now?

"I know you heard me, you stubborn son of a bitch. You can't hide in there forever. I'm gonna keep sayin' it over and over til you tell me to stop, no matter how much it embarrasses you -- I love you."

Another flicker, a small squirm, and somewhere Cordy was saying, "Oh, that's so sweet! In an utterly depraved and obsessive way."

"You can be as big a jackass as you like. You can boot me out of your head for sayin' it, but that doesn't make it not true. You can kick me out of your flat, out of your life, for sayin' it in front of your friends, and if you tell me to go, I will. But I'll still love you."

And Spike was not going to blubber in front of these people. He was not. Even though he could feel the little pricks in his eyelids that signaled something he hadn't done in mixed company in over a hundred years. He wouldn't, couldn't. Not in front of Angel, who'd told him once that it didn't mean he wasn't a man. He knew that -- had known it ever since -- but he'd never give the Ponce the satisfaction of knowing he'd taught Spike any lasting lessons. Unless, of course, Xander didn't open his eyes in about five seconds.

"You're a moody, irritating, neurotic science fiction geek with absolutely no taste in clothes, and I'm runnin' out of things to say between the I love you's, so I might have to start quoting Shakespeare any second now, and scarin' the kiddies. But I love you anyway, and if you're good and wake up for me, I think I have a chocolate bar in my pocket. Now, open your eyes, dammit, or I swear I'll turn you over my knee and spank you within an inch of your life, government chip be damned. I--"

"Spike?"

"What?" He didn't dare stop talking now. He was on a roll. "I was just getting to the bit where I say 'I even love your saggy old boxer shorts.'"

"I heard you the first time." Xander opened his eyes. "Did you say you had chocolate? I'm hungry."